


Breathe

by ImpossibleCherryBlossom



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment--Pratchett, PRATCHETT Terry - Works
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, First Time, Gender Issues, Genderqueer Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-04 06:18:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpossibleCherryBlossom/pseuds/ImpossibleCherryBlossom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mal has an unfortunate relationship with gender; Polly understands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe

Mal has a rather unfortunate relationship with gender. Of course, many vampires are ambiguous in their gender presentation for special events, or on rare occasion for no clearly stated reason, but apparently Mal is a bit too ambiguous for vampiric society at large. 

Apparently just because she could be a boy--and be one really well, be the most convincing boy in the entire damn regiment of girls dressing up and stuffing socks down their trousers and calling themselves lads--doesn’t mean she should be a boy. 

Mal thinks this is, quite frankly, ridiculous. But in the end most of vampiric society wound up being just that--ridiculous--to Mal. Perhaps it always would have been; perhaps Mal’s ability to constantly find fault in the ways of her ancestors was furthered by her ancestor’s ability to constantly find fault with her. She doesn’t need them anyway, they’re horrible. She has firmly convinced herself of this, of their ineptitude and fault, their irrelevance to the world, locked up in castles and basements. She must, or she might miss them too much. 

As it is she is occasionally homesick. 

Whenever she’s reminded of home, though, she’s reminded of her mother trying to force her into a dress. Reminded of the disapproval on her father’s face whenever she wore a suit instead. 

She knows she’s a girl--mostly, at least, maybe not all the way--why does anyone else have to? It’s easier to walk through the world as a guy. And sometimes Mal is not brave, is not strong, like Polly, sometimes Mal wants to take the easy way out. 

Now, now that the war was over and started up again, now that Polly is among the first women soldiers--the first women Sergeants, at that--and Mal is still masquerading as a boy, she’s forced to think that perhaps wearing the suit isn’t the easy way out. Maybe, just perhaps, she’s making life too hard on herself--she could fight for her country (fight for Polly) and be a girl. So at a diplomatic function that Mal does not entirely understand but Polly begs her to attend--she can never refuse Polly--Mal wears a dress. She curtsies and introduces herself as Maladicta, and the end of the evening can barely breathe. Either her dress or her undergarments are suffocating her, and she’s sure she’s about to puke or panic and go bloodthirsty or something when Polly comes up behind her. Silently, she is guided outside, far away from the hustle and bustle of swirling conversation, of dignitaries and dressed up army officials, of strained attempts to keep the peace. Or keep the war, really. 

Together they sit on a bench under the astonishingly clear constellations. Polly hands Mal a thermos of coffee. Once it has been consumed, Mal turns to Polly, who has never ceased to watch her, carefully, as she drinks.   
“How did you know?” It’s barely a whisper, but out of the partial release of stress rather than out of shame. Around Polly, Mal is not ashamed.   
“I figured something would occur when you got out that dress. I figured it was go time when you bared your fangs at that troll. Scared the wits right out of him.” Polly forces a smile, though this is in no way a light situation.   
“I won’t wear the dress again.”  
“Good.”  
“You don’t mind?”  
“I’m not your mother, Mal. I think you look dashing in a suit.” She tried to say this with a straight face, but Mal could probably smell the blush rising to her cheeks, see the way she faltered, even in the dark of night. Especially in the dark of night. This is Mal, after all.   
“I’m still a girl, I think.”   
“Okay.”  
Mal felt a sudden need to explain, to tell Polly the truth she had always expressed and never said. “The dresses, the curtsying, the way they look at me clothed like this--it suffocates me, Polly. I’m a girl, but I’m also not, I’m some other form of girl.”

Polly said nothing at first, and if Mal’s heart beat in the first place if would have stopped. For whatever reason, Polly’s approval means more than her mother’s ever did. But rather than stepping away, rather than condemning as unnatural, Polly slid across the bench so she was next to Mal. She turned, now moving off the bench entirely and looking Mal directly in the face. 

“Then breathe.” She murmured, lightly brushing Mal’s cheek with one hand while slowly undoing the fastenings of Mal’s dress with the other.   
“Polly.” The name was torn from Mal, she couldn’t contain it any longer. She’d wanted to call Polly by her name since forever ago--not just say her name, but say it as though it meant the world to her, as though it was the world to her, say it in a way that reflected who Polly was to Mal. This beautiful, strong, girl. This lifesaver.   
“Mal.” It was spoken as a sigh, the beginning of a song, full of aching. The beginning of a life. 

Their first kiss was as anticipated as it was surprising. They had been headed in this direction for a long time, but neither thought it would happen tonight, with the soft noises of the party in the background, with Mal in a half-undone dress, with the stars as their witnesses. When they broke for air there was laughter in their eyes, and obligatory jokes were made regarding fanged seductresses and the dark of the night. They nearly skipped back to the old inn the army had placed them in, as giddy as school girls, journeying back to the room they shared due to budgetary necessities.

Never had either of them had ever been so happy the country was veritably broke.   
That night they saw each other as they were again--Mal had seen Polly long ago, it seemed, but now it was abundantly clear to them both that Polly had seen Mal as well, that no one in the whole of the disc knew either of them as they knew each other.   
When they finally settled into sleep there was love in their eyes, and maybe neither said it in those words, maybe that leap was too big, but they both knew it was there. Unspoken, it slept beside them, as they curled around each other, and woke contented in each other’s arms.


End file.
